1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a system for connecting a teat cup to a teat, in particular according to the preamble of claim 1, and comprising: at least one teat cup with an opening for receiving a teat, a robot arm, which is configured to move the teat cup, and a teat cup positioning system with an optical 3D-sensor, which teat cup positioning system is configured to control the robot arm to connect the teat cup under the control of the optical 3D-sensor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Document U.S.2007215052, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, discloses a system, in so-called milking robots, which is able to connect autonomously one or more teat cups to a corresponding number of teats, based on information from an image that has been obtained by means of an optical time-of-flight-camera.
A problem with such systems is the reliability of connecting the teat cup, because this is of major importance to highly efficient automatic milking as a whole. A particular drawback with known systems relates to the reliability of estimating the relative position of the teat cup with respect to the teat to which it is to be connected. Although it is possible for a 3D-sensor to determine, in principle, the mutual positions of different objects, such as teats, teat cups and the udder, on the basis of the measured distances, in common practice the accuracy is frequently found to be insufficient for a highly reliable connection, and shows, for example, a deviation or dispersion up to a few centimeters.